NEWS 1/31/2001

THE SALES WEEK THAT WAS
Ah! The sweet smell of a successful release date. We taste it in our nostrils again, now that we've completed a sales week of unexpected completeness. Check it out: of the exciting new and used titles we had on the block last week (Chestnut Station In Your Living Room, Papa M "Papa M Sings," Smog Forgotten Foundation and Sewn to the Sky CDs, as well as Palace Records artists The Anomoanon and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy back-catalog), we sold out almost everything we had! It was some sweet, across-the-boards sales action - the Chestnut Station fans really came out of the woodwork and separated themselves from the chaff and all that jazz...meanwhile, the public fascination with Papa M was taken to all new levels with their purchasing of his cold-water singing stylizations EP ("Papa M Sings") – which reminds us of the old adage, if it doesn't expand the consciousness, then it ain't worth a shit dime. With these new and used records, we turned some of you on. Maybe even permanently. And that's worth a shit dime.

FEBRU-WARY
And so the wicked month of January comes to a close. We're happy to report that it's so – if only because February is the month we shutter the windows, get up and bar the doors and take the phone off the hook. God damn, if there's anything worse than a January, it's a freakin' February! But at least it's shorter in duration.

Anyway, the antidote to what ails us all so damn much can be found in the sealed boxes out on our loading dock – yes, new releases! What we're leaning on to get us through this month are a couple of titles we've been talking about on and off for a couple whiles now – namely, the all-american, breakout, self-titled LP/CD release from that southern collective, The Anomoanon, as well as that 'zine of 'zines, the ultimate psych rag at large in our sadly non-anachronistic society today, The Galactic Zoo Dossier (#5!).

First up, The Anomoanon. They have been making releases on Palace records for the last five years or so. Their first two long-playing records (Mother Goose, Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses") interpolated classic children's rhymes with the at-home, close-knit folk- and rock-based music of the group. And they were great. But this new release is something else. Gone are the kiddy rhymes, classic tho they were. Gone too are the polite rhythms and song structures of those initial efforts. In their place are the sun-burned sounds of a band that's gotten around; a new sense of the word classical for The Anomoanon. Whether bending down low or hard and rollicking, The Anomoanon's newest record leaps from the speakers with life, a life that can be recognized and enjoyed as one's own. Human music? You've heard that before. But if you plan to stop hearing things anytime soon, you'd best commit The Anomoanon to memory before that time. Your very soul will thank you further on down the line.

Now then, The Galactic Zoo Dossier #5. This is a definitively awe-inspiring, insistantly mind-boggling look into one of the world's finest fields of cult fixation – the field where pop art, all manner of psychedelia and rock have converged in a massive, ongoing love-in. Volunteer scribe Steven Krakow (aka Plastic Crimewave) has rendered all his researches and reflections in ever-lovin' pen and ink, lettering the entire magazine by hand, as well as providing every piece of fervoristic journalism (and love) with an illustration of the band/artist in question. And in this way, The Galactic Zoo Dossier is bringing it all back home again for us in a grandly entertaining fashion. This is not just an informational magazine – the thrill of discovery courses through every one of it's 56 pages. And that's not all–- it also contains a set of equally exquisite, hand-executed trading cards, examining over 50 Damaged Guitar Gods ("from Randy Holden to Jandek, Jorma Kaukonen to Derek Bailey")....yeah, in trading card form. Collect them all, you know? But wait! That's not the only bonus. A full-length CD of bizarre 60s and 70s psych obscurities along with a host of modern tracks (including music from Gate, Hamish Kilgour, Bardo Pond, Michael Karoli, Musica Transonic, and Bevis Frond)...how much would you pay for all this? Well it doesn't matter, we're going to charge like, $18 or something apiece – and it will be worth every penny. Just don't lick the brown illustrations. And you don't ask why, either.

Then later in the month, we've got new releases from Appendix Out and Neil Hagerty. Both these artists' new work can be sampled by downloading the MP3s located on our website's homepage – so check them out. These songs will provide a window to these incredible new releases. Additionally, we'd promised extra descriptions on these records this week, but what more can we say? The Appendix Out title is called The Night is Advancing, and it's their best record yet. The songs go deeper than ever; the arrangements complement this action unerringly. And frontman Ali Roberts delivers his lyrical fare (best yet) with incisive aplomb (run to your dictionaries, faithful! Or just substitute the phrase "unbelievable kick-assedness"). You can reuse the term for the record we've come to know as Neil Michael Hagerty. The ass-kicking quotient runs quite high on this record, to be perfectly frank. People know Neil as one of rock's all-time great guitar players, but what he puts forth on his solo debut is the spirit and image of a great all-round entertainer, writing songs and arranging, playing and singing them with class and style. The tone of Neil Michael Hagerty is subterranean, futuristic and alternately paranoid and laid back. In other words, it's got everything.

We're just sorry we can't sell you these records today. But we honestly can't – so hang on, would ya! This month can't last forever – although with records like these, wouldn't it be great if it could?

TOP HONORS
We talk a lot about our Poster Hanging contest – you know, hang a poster, win a prize – but it bears repeating that this contest could win you honor, glory....and maybe even something free! Case in point: Music Millenium, the shop that tried harder out in Portland, OR, won the whole thing in a walk with a Royal Trux window display composed almost entirely out of non POP items. In other words, they used their originality to great effect and walked away with top honors last fall. We'd promised something free – but when they upped the ante, we felt we had to as well. So we started thinking it over: how to reward their efforts. We thought and thought. Then we lost track of it after awhile. But now we're ready to award this special secret prize to the proud winners. It comes in three parts and is still a big secret. Beyond that, all we can tell you is that the whole town of Portland will be talking for some time about this special prize. If they can do it, so can you. Make your town proud – win the retail display contest today!

WHAT IS THE COLONEL'S SECRET RECIPE?
We're gonna ask you to walk a mile in someone else's shoes right now – and that special someone is David Grubbs. Yeah, if you're David Grubbs, what could be a bigger honor than having a London Sunday Times critic name The Spectrum Between record of the year? Easy — being commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. And Governor Paul Patton of Kentucky just did precisely that, putting David in the company of Winston Churchill, John Glenn (commissioned while in space!), Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Dwight Yoakam, Ann-Margaret, Carol Channing, Whoopie Goldberg and David's childhood barber, among venerated others. Yes, before you start getting too excited about this potential Hollywood Squares lineup of Kentucky, we should probably tell you – David is not the first Colonel among Drag City artists. No, most of the other fighting Kentuckians on the roster have been knighted already. David may not have been the first – but he's certainly among the proudest. So get out there and buy your fourth copy of The Spectrum Between, if not for yourself, then somebody. Or if there's not enough intrigue in your life, go and get his new (semi-reissue) The Coxcomb/Avocado Orange – available to the inquiring minds at your corner store now!

COMING DOWN THE ROAD
All of a sudden, there's a lot more happening out there than there was – thank God for the booking agent (that's the last time you'll hear us say that this year). But really, it's almost true – the booking agents out there, in collaboration with a few key bands have scheduled something special, something that's coming to your town soon. Maybe even featuring your favorite artists, too – check the Tours page and take your pick: there's David Grubbs, U.S. Maple, Jim O'Rourke (with and without Sonic Youth) with Neil Hagerty, The Fucking Champs, and Chestnut Station coming up in the uncharted future (this Spring).

But the biggest show of the year (so far) is happening in Louisville on Saturday February the 3rd! It's the ever-mysterious Papa M and the ever-grooving King Kong in a get-down town meeting to challenge the senses of every American. So stop what you're doing, get all your friends and take a balloon up your ass to Louisville. For those of you who have only happened upon our helpful message after the fact, you missed it! Damn you! Redemption will only come in the form of attending another one of these fabulous shows we've got coming down the road. So book 'em.

BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY!
That's right, we haven't even talked about his nerve-shattering forthcoming release (the awesomely life-affirming Ease Down the Road). But we're all talked out for this week, so...

NEXT TIME
We re-prognosticate upon our rumored Next Release Date! Hype on Hagerty, the Bonnie 'Prince' (as promised), and the kids of Appendix Out! U.S. Maple on the horizon! Edith Frost coming 'round the mountain! And, as always, more.